Canadian by-elections, 2017 (next event: Calgary-Lougheed, AB prov.: Dec 14)

[Jeppe]

Both NDP candidates have managed to win over the suburban parts of their constituencies, with Vicki Mowat winning all but one poll in Fairview. Polls made it seem like the Saskatoon suburbs were still solidly supporting the Sask Party, but by-elections have indicated a different trend.

It'll be interesting to see how the NDP does in the even wealthier suburban areas of the city, like Stonebridge or Willowgrove, where the Sask Party won most polls with over 60%-70% of the vote. They might be an even tougher nut to crack than the rural areas, seeing as they are least affected by the austerity budget. The suburbanites living in those areas aren't the ones riding the STC or living on social assistance, that's for sure.

Regina's only comparable suburb is in Regina Wascana Plains, a mixed constituency that has Regina's southeastern portions along with some smaller, wealthy towns further east of the city. I do wish there was a by-election in Regina, because the NDP is doing ridiculously well in the city, where I wouldn't be surprised to see the NDP hit 65% or even 70% in some currently Sask-Party held seats. Saskatoon's swings have been dramatic, but polls have indicated the NDP winning by landslide margins in Regina, even more than in Saskatoon.

Overall, the Sask NDP's shot at forming government relies on winning a few rural seats, outside of the larger and medium sized cities. Some rural seats like Batoche and Saskatchewan Rivers, which have large reserve populations, are ripe for picking, and they'll be the ones deciding who forms government in 2020. To do that, they need to win some small towns, because ranchers and farmers are likely never going to vote for the NDP en masse, so they need to win over the economically downtrodden Saskatchewanians living in the province's smaller population centres if they want to win in those rural seats. Kindersley will be an interesting test to see if they can win in small towns. They don't have to win the by-election, it'd be a miracle if they actually did, but they have to prove they can do well in some small towns, if they want to form government in 2020.

[Jeppe]

Some rural seats like Batoche and Saskatchewan Rivers, which have large reserve populations, are ripe for picking, and they'll be the ones deciding who forms government in 2020.

I don't understand that argument. Seats with a high native population seem less swingable than more white seats to me. It's like arguing that Mississippi could be a Democratic pickup. Sure the NDP have a high floor, but the non-reserve polls are voting 70-80% Saskatchewan Party.

The northern rural ridings have a history of supporting the NDP. It's like whites in the Midwest vs the South, white rural people in southern Saskatchewan are more conservative, which is why all of the only few ridings that have never voted for the NDP are all in southern Saskatchewan.

Meanwhile the Sask NDP was winning a good chunk of northern Saskatchewan's rural white voters back in 2007. They' definitely swung to the Sask Party in 2011 and 2016, but if the Sask NDP starts making gains with rural voters, it's definitely be most pronounced amongst  y ones that have historically supported them, the ones concentrated in the northern part of the province.

Not too long ago, there were quite a few NDP supporting towns. It's not implausible for it to happen again, especially in Saskatchewan. The Sask NDP is being led by a 29 year old woman first elected to office last year, and they still won the by-election dramatically with a huge swing against Brad Wall. It won't be pretty once the tables are turned in a few months, with a more popular NDP leader and an unpopular and unknown Sask Party leader.

[Jeppe]

Saskatoon showed pretty mild swings compared to Regina and rest of Saskatchewan in polling, so that's one thing to take into account. Saskatoon's swing to the NDP has been the smallest, compared to Regina and the rest of Saskatchewan. If a by-election happened in say, Regina Coronation Park, then we'd probably have seen some crazy 20+ point swings, that would indicate the NDP winning the popular vote province-wide.

The Sask Party is likely going to have an even tougher time in the years ahead, without Brad Wall. It's hard to understate exactly how important Brad Wall has been to the Sask Party brand. He's been the face of the party for a generation now, and the people running to replace him are all unknowns.

[Jeppe]

How about Swift Current?  After all, it's been held by the NDP before (most recently during the 1991-99 Romanow majority years).  And even if they don't win, in Brad Wall's absence the NDP's almost certain to have one of its highest swings here, if not *the* highest swing...

Swift Current is an interesting one because it is an entirely urban constituency. I've lived there before and it's not exactly the most well off place in the province, and a lot of people automatically just voted for Brad Wall because he was the premier and it was his hometown, the place where he'd lived his entire life. The highest swings will probably happen in Regina though, since they're going from losing the city by a few points to winning 2 to 1.

[Jeppe]

Scarborough Agincourt could be a competitive by-election, it was somewhat close for a GTA seat, and the huge Chinese community could turn against the Liberal party because of tax changes and marijuana legalization.

[Jeppe]

Polls will not pick up on swings among ethnic communities, though. They don't respond to polls as much as the general public, and even if they did, you wouldn't see a big shift in province-wide polling.

I imagine legalization is really going to hurt the Liberals in this riding. There's probably no stronger anti-drug demographic in Canada.

[Jeppe]

Polls will not pick up on swings among ethnic communities, though. They don't respond to polls as much as the general public, and even if they did, you wouldn't see a big shift in province-wide polling.

Sure. I just meant there will likely be little to no swing in the white vote to help put the Tories over the top.

Also, I just noticed that about 15% of the riding is South Asian. Have they trended any further away form the Tories since 2015? If so that might provide some headwinds for them.

If Singh wins the NDP leadership race, they'll probably swing hard to the NDP. My assumption would be that they voted Liberal in 2015, so the Liberals could really be in hot water in this by-election.

[Jeppe]

Running in Agincourt would be a bad idea; wrong part of Scarborough for him to win in.  Do you think one of the Windsor MPs will step down for him? I'm worried that might not go over so well.

Any chance one of those might decide to run provincially as I am thinking of one of the eight Ontario MPs steps down to go provincial that could create an opening.  Of the upcoming by-elections, none of them are exactly seats the NDP is likely to win.

Being an MP is a lot more prestigious than being an MPP, so it's pretty unlikely. If somebody stepped aside for Jagmeet, it'd probably be an older member who has served a few terms already.

[Jeppe]

Grits probably hold it with Jean Yip. It'll be hard for the Conservative to attack the MP's widow without it crossing a line.

[Jeppe]

I don't think the Liberals will win. I'm not sure about my prediction, but I'm leaning towards the Bloc to pick up the seat.

[Jeppe]

It'll be interesting to see if the NDP can come ahead of the Liberals in Sturgeon River-Parkland. It would be a consolation prize after a devastating loss in Quebec, but a consolation prize nonetheless, better than walking away completely empty handed.

[Jeppe]

I think Bill 62 and a weakened NDP in Quebec is setting the stage for a Bloc comeback. I think the Bloc has this, unless all/most of the polls reporting are from Alma and the area.

[Jeppe]

If the NDP lost 13% of their vote share in all their currently held Quebec seats, only Ruth Ellen Brosseau, Alexandre Boulerice, and Guy Caron would remain in the House (of course, this is before the 13% gets redistributed).

[Jeppe]

Gordon Hoggs was confirmed as the Liberal candidate in South Surrey-White Rock, along wth Jean Yip in Scarborough-Agincourt.

Rosemarie Falk, a 29 year old social worker was selected as the Conservative candidate in North Battlefords-Lloydminster. Ken Finlayson, a controversial candidate was barred from running, otherwise he likely would've won the nomination.

I haven't seen any other candidate nominations for the December 11 by-elections.

[Jeppe]

Talk on the ground in Saskatchewan is that the new Premier (likely Alanna Koch) will call a spring snap election to secure a new mandate. If not, then the next set of by-elections will surely happen the same week as the NDP leadership race (first week of March).

Koch would be the leader of a caucus that doesn’t like her very much, so it’ll be a chance to catch the NDP off guard, likely before they choose a permanent leader, and fill caucus with her loyalists and allowing the dissidents in her caucus a chance to to retire gracefully.

[Jeppe]

Also ask Theresa May.

If there's an election next year, the NDP will win.

Yeah, it’d be interesting to see what happens if the interim leader has to lead the party into the general election. Would Nicole Sarauer, the interim, become Premier? Or would the leadership race resume? I assume the interim who led the party to a general election win would just stay on permanently as Premier, but who knows.

[Jeppe]

Actually it's three leaders going up against each other: the Green leader is running in Lougheed, too.

lol. Well, the Alberta Greens are especially irrelevant due to not having their s**t together as a party. This despite the federal Greens doing well in certain pockets of the province in the past.

Didn't they finish second or something in the Calgary-Centre by-election a few years ago?

[Jeppe]

Lloydminster is one of the most conservative parts of Saskatchewan, the Sask Party almost broke 90% there in the last provincial election. Aside from the Battlefords and some reserves, there aren’t very many Sask NDP friendly places either. However, you’ll probably see a number of federal Conservatives defecting to the provincial NDP in the next elections which could make some rural seats competitive. Saskatchewan Rivers, Meadow Lake, and Batoche are all seats that could flip to the NDP, given that their rural voters are more elastic than in other parts of the country.

Either way, when there’s a huge swing, seats that weren’t competitive become competitive, like Toronto-Danforth, St. John East, basically every single seat in Alberta in the last provincial election, etc. Just looking at the numbers from when the NDP got drubbed by 30 points, and deducing that’s it’s impossible for them to win because there weren’t enough competitive seats back then isn’t something that makes a lot of sense. Some polls showed the NDP and Sask Party tied or very close in rural Saskatchewan, so the old maps and results might not be the best predictor, given they show the results from when  the NDP got crushed by 50 points in that region.

[Jeppe]

Assuming there's no early election, there will be several provincial by-elections in Saskatchewan. Swift Current, Kindersley, and Melfort. Rumours are swirling that Don McMorris (the former disgraced Deputy Premier who was caught drinking and driving) will retire soon too, and that Alanna Koch would run in his seat if she won the leadership, seeing as she lives in his constituency (Indian Head-Milestone).

Lloydminster is weird, and I'm still not convinced the result wasn't a tabulating error or something. A large reserve poll that voted 419-14 for the NDP in 2011 disappeared in the 2016 general election, which explains the huge shift (besides the Alberta NDP, but the mystery of the disappearing reserve is far more interesting). Maybe they didn't have access to a polling place on the reserve or something, but I found it really weird.

[Jeppe]

It could also depend on who the NDP was running last time, what kind of campaign, etc.

Speaking of all that, another dilemma facing the Sask NDP is the lack of a "split in the right": presently, it's the most "binary" province, with Lib and Green totally fringe-marginal or verging on it...

Also keep in mind that in Western Canada in general, it isn’t that rare to see Conservative voters defect to the NDP and vice versa, especially in provincial election. Right now the NDP is taking the lion’s share of federal Liberal voters in the province, which is how they’re staying competitive.

The biggest problem for the NDP might be that is their vote share might be too inefficient, especially if they’re winning Regina and Saskatoon by 20-30 points as indicated by polling.

Also, there’s still chatter about a possible early election. It’d be pretty crazy if the interim leader had to lead the party in a general election and ended up winning. Has something like that ever happened before? Especially if a leadership election was about to take place.

[Jeppe]

Another possible reason that the Sask Party might call an early election is because the Sask Party membership has tripled from 10,000 to almost 30,000. For a province as small as Saskatchewan, that’s a HUGE figure. That’s basically the amount of people living in Moose Jaw, one of the largest cities in the province.